Karen White shares gift for storytelling with ‘The Beach Trees’

Destruction can take the form of heartbreak and betrayal or it can be found through nature-related incidents, but when both are combined, tragedy in a new magnitude can be overwhelming. This theme is prevalent in Karen White’s new book, “The Beach Trees.”

Julie Holt has had her share of tragedy throughout her life, but an odd circumstance might help to turn her life around, if she’ll allow it. She has been handed an unexpected inheritance — 5-year old Beau, the son of her close yet mysterious friend Monica.

With no friends or family to provide support, Julie and Beau move from New York to the Gulf Coast beach home Monica also had willed to her. Julie discovers there is no house left after the chaos and devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Julie is left with no home and only one clue as to how to find any of Beau’s relations: a portrait painted of Monica’s great-grandmother by Julie’s own famous great-grandfather. Julie finds herself struggling to understand why Monica would have left her family and childhood home behind 10 years before. And why, inexplicably, Julie and Monica’s pasts seem to intertwine.

Family secrets held for generations threaten to get in the way of the answers Julie so desperately seeks. It will take patience and determination to find the truth that all so desperately need.

White has once again written a novel that is both heart-wrenching and heartwarming, and is filled with all the gentle nuances of the graceful, but steadfast South. In “The Beach Trees,” she tells the story through the voices of Julie and Monica’s grandmother Aimee. By alternating between the past and the present, White guides her readers along a journey to find truth.

Readers will find reading White’s prose an uplifting experience as she is a truly gifted storyteller.